This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Global Times Strikes Back

The article "China revives production of JH-7 strike aircraft "http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=181808 " is making around in the normal internet channels and has been rebutted and discredited as most of the claims are either incorrect or outdated. The news here is not the article, but rather Global Times' response.

Here are some examples:questionable claims stated by the article.

Meanwhile, in another development, Russia and China have clinched a deal tohave more Su-27SK fighters assembled at a Chinese aviation plant for China'sAir Force.

The $ 1.4 billion deal involves a contract for the fighters to be assembledat the Shenyang Aircraft Making Factory in Shenyang, Liaoning province.Thecontract was signed by Chinese defence officials and managers of Russia'schief arms exporter, Rosvoorouzhenie.

The following up Su-27SK deal was canceled in 2006 only after a short 96 production run by Shengyang Aircraft company in favorite of the domestic J-11B program.

The official said that it was likely that China would want to put new engines on the JH-7 in the 2004-2006 time frame, but that these dates were not fixed.

China has received the last batch of Rolls-Royce Sprey MK202 turbofan engines between 2004 and 2004 and installed them to the improved JH-7A program.

In another development, a group of Chinese officials visited Moscow in August 2000 to negotiate the purchase of Russian-built A-50 early warning aircraft. The visit came in the wake of the failure of a similar deal between Beijing and Israel for Phalcon early warning aircraft.

Up to 4 KJ-2000 AWACS already in service since 2003.

The article is too lame to be commented here initially; but to my surprise, Global Times fires back a rebuttal. Global Time, is a newspaper operated under People's Daily which launched back in April 2009 as China's attempt to win greater influence abroad thought media.

At any rate, the rebuttal is news by itself as Chinese media normally shy away from direct response against specific articles and stay in the "He says, She says mode". They picked on a low hanging fruit this time, let's see if they will became more aggressive over time. As a side note, they published two front page articles related to Tiananmen on June 4th 2009. (Here)(Here)

Reports on China's intention to cooperate with aircraft engine makers in the UK and France to improve the performance of the turbofan of PLA fighter bomber JH-7, are denied by the chief designer of the aircraft, Chen Yijian, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering. According to Chen, China has also already fixed problems with the JH-7 turbofan, Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao reported.

Also known as the Flying Leopard, JH-7 initially used the WS-9 Qinling turbofan, which were from turbofans produced by the Rolls-Royce Spey company in the UK. But after years of research, China has fixed problems with the turbofans of Flying Leopard on its own, according to Chen.

Chen went on to say that China's research on turbofans is still lagging behind compared with some other countries, especially the turbofans of large aircrafts. China has been calling for more research talents to help solve this problem. He said the third generation of China's fighter bombers, including the J-8 series, J-10 series and the Flying Leopard, have taken shape of a combatant power, and will appear in the Military Parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the nation.

According to Ta Kung Pao, China began research on the WS-15 Qinling-2 Turbofan in 1998. The Qinling-2 Turbofan is an improvement on the WS-9 turbofan, with increased pre-heating temperatures on the turbines and reduced weight for greater efficiency. Tests on the Qinling-2 Turbofan in October 2008 were successful. It is now technically competitive to the late M53-P2 engine from France.